A recent ruling from a federal court in Texas about churches and politics has been overlooked – but it shouldn’t be.

Regular readers of this blog might recall a flap that erupted in El Paso after the city approved an ordinance extending health-care benefits to domestic partners. Pastors at some local fundamentalist churches went bonkers and announced plans to recall Mayor John Cook and El Paso City Council Members Steve Ortega and Susie Byrd.

An El Paso church’s brazen effort to remove the mayor and two members of the city council has been brought to a screeching halt.

The political drama in the west Texas town started last summer when Pastor Tom Brown of Word of Life Church issued a politically charged email to the community. Brown, who sent the email under the guise of his Tom Brown Ministries, attacked El Paso Mayor John Cook and El Paso City Council Members Steve Ortega and Susie Byrd because the three voted to extend health-care benefits to domestic partners.